For this video, I joined Technology Tools for Today co-founder Joel Bruckenstein for a discussion of the top technology highlights from Schwab IMPACT 2014. Hear why Bruckenstein says this year’s event was one of his “favorite Schwab IMPACT conferences ever.”

On today’s broadcast, the Office of the Future has arrived. Find out what technology you should buy to be an advisor on the leading edge. Cybersecurity enforcement is coming from the SEC. How will you prepare your firm for this new round of exams? And, retirement illustrations get distilled down to two variables. How one company’s simplified tool can help clients make better investment choices, all in real time.

[This week’s lead story comes from Fidelity Investments, as the company unveiled a radical approach to the advisor’s workplace called the Office of the Future. Fidelity’s Office of the Future is actually a real place you can visit at the company’s campus in Smithfield, Rhode Island.

If you can’t visit the office in person, Fidelity provides a 360-degree virtual tour online, where you can view technology that emphasizes seven trends relevant to advisors, including pervasive video, big data, gamification, and more.

But a part of me feels that the Office of the Future label is bit of a misnomer, as you can buy just about every piece of equipment installed in the Office of the Future today. Nevertheless, if you updated your technology with the kinds of tools and devices seen in Fidelity’s example, I think you’ll have a good chance of attracting new clients that have increased expectations about their advisor’s technology and overall service experience.] Fidelity Institutional, the division of Fidelity Investments® that provides clearing, custody and investment management products to registered investment advisors (RIAs), banks, broker-dealers and family offices, today announced the opening of the Office of the Future on its Smithfield, Rhode Island campus.

[Now as all financial professionals use more technology in their businesses, the SEC is ramping up its oversight of the risks of all this technology through enhanced cybersecurity examinations.

Two weeks ago, the SEC released an extensive document covering dozens of items examiners may request when auditing the cybersecurity policies and procedures of a financial services firm, and that includes SEC-registered investment advisers.

Based on its list of requests, the SEC expects you to have a written security information policy, an inventory of hardware devices and software applications used in your business, details on when and how you conduct risk assessments, and a whole lot more.

It’s clear that enforcement regarding cybersecurity is about to get a lot tougher, which I feel is appropriate given the responsibility you have to keep your clients’ personal and financial account information safe from attacks.

So I recommend that whoever is responsible for addressing security in your firm review the nearly 30 individual items in the SEC’s sample request list and update your policies and procedures accordingly, and do it sooner rather than later.] OCIE is issuing this Risk Alert to provide additional information concerning its initiative to assess cybersecurity preparedness in the securities industry.

[And finally, rounding out this week’s update is a new feature from Riskalyze called Retirement Maps. Now many advisors like to illustrate a client’s probability of success in funding their retirement goals projected many years into the future, but the extensive data entry required and time consuming Monte Carlo calculations performed by most software programs can often be a deterrent of doing so.

So the new Retirement Maps aims to significantly streamline this process. Here’s Riskalyze CEO Aaron Klien with more details:

Best of all, Retirement Maps is being offered as a free upgrade to all existing Riskalyze customers, and for a limited time, new Riskalyze customers will also receive a free lifetime upgrade as well.] After thousands of hours of research and development, our Core Technology team invented a new way to deterministically calculate the 95% probability years into the future. There’s no waiting for a long, slow recalculation: you get an interactive way to build a map for the client’s retirement right in front of their very eyes.

Our Certified Compliance Partners provide expert monitoring, archiving, and management of communications for enterprises in regulated industries. They help your social interactions remain effective while ensuring compliance with corporate governance policies and major regulations.

Wealth Access, a wealth management platform designed for financial advisers and high-net-worth clients, announced Wednesday that it had raised more than $3 million in a financing round that includes investments from a TNInvestco fund and a St. Louis financial technology accelerator.

XY Planning Network, the platform launched in early April by Michael Kitces and Alan Moore, announced Monday its list of “core” technology partners that will be available to current and new members of the platform, which is dedicated to helping young planners build a fee-only business targeting Gen X and Gen Y clients.

Orion Advisor Services, LLC, the premier portfolio accounting service bureau, announces a complete redesign of the functionality and features of the client portal for its financial advisor clients. With this redesign, advisors have new capabilities to communicate more effectively with their clients, and give clients a complete snapshot of all their assets, whether managed by the advisor or not.

On today’s broadcast, hackers launch a massive denial of service attack, so what should you do if one of your providers gets attacked? Apple is releasing yet another update to iOS, find out how this will help you support the bring-your-own-device trend in the workplace, and passwords are growing like weeds. Find out what programs you should use to better manage passwords while also protecting your account security.

[This week’s top story serves as a warning for anyone who uses cloud-based software services, which pretty much means all of us. Last week, dozens of popular web-based services were the victim of a distributed denial of service attack, or DDoS, including popular email newsletter services like MailChimp, GetResponse, and Aweber, the service I use to send out my weekly Bits and Bytes updates via email.

The DDoS attacks essentially flood websites with malicious traffic, making it impossible for legitimate traffic to make it through, bringing entire websites down. The good news is that no passwords or user data are ever compromised, but the bad news is that the website is totally offline, and in this recent attack, many websites were down for several days. So what lesson did I learn from the DDoS attack on Aweber?

The primary way I communicate with you, the FPPad audience, is through my email newsletter. But without access to Aweber, I had no way to send out updates to anyone. So the lesson for me is to get in the habit of making an offline backup of my newsletter subscribers, so that when Aweber is down, I can still send out an emergency message if I need to.

It takes less than a minute to export my database to a spreadsheet, and I probably only need to backup my data once a week. So if you’re dependent on access to your online services to communicate with clients, be sure you make a periodic backup of client contact information so you can still contact them in the event your website provider goes down.] Starting on Monday, February 24 at about 1PM, AWeber began experiencing large, sustained, and repeated DDoS attacks that completely disabled all aspects of our service for extended periods of time.

[Next up is news of a pending release of Apple’s latest version of their mobile operating system, iOS 7.1, which will feature expanded mobile device management, or MDM, capabilities. This is a big deal for any advisor who wants to use an iPhone or iPad to access a mix of personal and business information on one device, a trend known as bring-your-own-device.

iOS 7.1 will allow IT administrators to deploy MDM profiles wirelessly to devices, which is a big advantage over the existing process of requiring physical access to the device so administrators could plug it in. Users will be able to accept the MDM profiles on their devices and can view what access and controls the IT administrator has over the device. IT can also install apps, settings, and device policies wirelessly over the air without ever needing physical access to the device.

These new MDM controls will be supported by third party solutions, so if you’re seeking a way to support BYOD in your business, look to companies like airwatch, MobileIron, and Zenprise for a solution that meets your needs as well as your budget.] Progressive IT organizations worldwide are prioritizing productivity and innovation by empowering employees with iPhone and iPad.

[And finally, you are no stranger to the growing number of passwords you need to manage in order to log in to your online accounts. With a new password seemingly created each week, how do you possibly manage them all without jeopardizing your account security? In a recent article on InvestmentNews, Joyce Hanson highlighted several password managers advisors are using to organize and secure of all the passwords they need to log in to web-based services.

Top contenders cited by advisors include LastPass, 1Password, or DirectPass, which are all available for less than $50 per year per user, which is inexpensive insurance compared to the cost of a security breach should just one of your passwords become compromised.] Cloud software helps advisers keep track of the minutiae

On today’s broadcast, iPhone and iPad users on high alert; what you need to do right now to fix a huge security flaw, how Schwab Advisor Services plans to give thousands of advisors a presence in the popular app stores, and what’s the next hot technology you might see coming from the industry’s largest independent broker-dealer?

[This week’s top story is for all of you who use iPhones and iPads in your business. In case you haven’t heard, Apple quietly rolled out a new update to iOS this week to patch a critical flaw in the way secure Internet connections are handled.

It’s been dubbed the “gotofail” flaw, as the operating system’s source code had an inadvertent goto command, essentially bypassing the final steps in the security authentication process.

So what you need to do right now is to turn on your device, open the Settings app, tap General, and then tap Software Update to start the download process. The same bug also affects Mac users, so be sure to perform a Software Update on your Mac to patch this security hole.] Like everything else on the iPhone, the critical crypto flaw announced in iOS 7 yesterday turns out to be a study in simplicity and elegant design: a single spurious “goto” in one part of Apple’s authentication code that accidentally bypasses the rest of it.

[Next up is another story about mobile devices, only this one comes from Schwab Advisor Services. In a press release this week, Schwab announced that it officially rolled out Schwab OpenView Mobile, a service that allows advisors to publish native mobile apps branded for their business. Schwab OpenView Mobile lets advisors perform limited customization of things like logos, contact details, and color schemes and publish the app in the iTunes App Store as well as Google Play.

But Schwab isn’t the first to offer custom branded apps for advisors, as both Orion Advisor Services and Trust Company of America have both been offering this service to their clients for several years at no additional charge. The Faulkner Media Group also publishes branded mobile apps for advisors at a reasonable price.

But for a cost of of $5,000 up front plus $2,000 in annual maintenance, Schwab OpenView Mobile might prove to be a bit too expensive relative to the other third party app solutions currently on the market. I’ll come back in a few months to report on the overall adoption of OpenView Mobile by Schwab’s advisors, so stay tuned.] Schwab OpenView Mobile officially launches, allowing RIAs to publish branded mobile apps to the iTunes App Store and Google Play

[And finally, wrapping up this week’s broadcast is a little inside information on how LPL Financial hopes to make its advisors a bit more efficient when collaborating with the home office. According to my sources, aka a tweet from Jamie Cox, LPL will soon be deploying an instant messaging and video chat service from Microsoft called Lync.

Now I know several RIAs have been experimenting with collaboration platforms like Yammer, Google Chat, and Salesforce Chatter, but this is the first I’ve heard of an independent broker’s plans to roll out an enterprise-wide messaging app. Retail pricing for Lync is $2 per user per month, but I don’t have details on what the final cost will be to LPL representatives, if any.While the apps might seem a little funky at first, it’s clear that realtime messaging and collaboration is really gaining momentum in the enterprise, so if you aren’t at least experimenting with some of these apps, you might want to put them on your technology roadmap for this year.]

@BillWinterberg@LPL will eventually r/o Lync to advisers—but no small office is likely to choose lync IMO when iMessage/gchat are free

On today’s broadcast, can you really share documents on Dropbox and SkyDrive without violating compliance? How does one RIA manage the security concerns of the bring-your-own-device trend? And does Salesforce create more problems than it solves? One RIA decides to bare all.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Hill Compliance Advisors, a virtual compliance consulting firm to RIAs. As a former RIA herself, Cindi personally performs your compliance tasks, allowing you to do what you do best: run your business and spend more time with clients.

With a little help, compliance will no longer feel like the enormous burden it might seem to be today. Follow Cindi’s blog and sign up for her free newsletter by visiting fppad.com/hilladvisors.

[On the heels of last week’s announcements by Laserfiche, NetDocuments is out with news of its own. The popular cloud-based document management provider announced two new enhancements that should be very useful for advisors.

First, NetDocuments has reengineered its ndOffice product, which allows NetDocuments to be integrated directly with Microsoft Office applications, including the online Office 365 Web Apps. Instead of temporarily saving documents to a desktop or server and then uploading them to NetDocuments, ndOffice allows users to open and update Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files directly from their NetDocuments repository. That should save a lot of mouse clicks!

And second, NetDocuments announced the scheduled release of ndConnect coming this April. Now *you* may use NetDocuments for your own document management, but your clients prefer to use consumer services like Dropbox or SkyDrive to manage their own files. So how do you get the two services to play nice with one other?

ndConnect is NetDocuments’ way of bridging the gap between these services, as it applies rules and permissions to support file sharing with Dropbox and SkyDrive without circumventing the security and compliance requirements advisors need to follow. So you can continue to meet your compliance obligations for document management while allowing your clients to use their preferred file sharing service.] NetDocuments brings document management directly into MS Office applications and integrates the enterprise content management service with Dropbox and SkyDrive

[Next up is news on the mobile device security front. I bet you wouldn’t even consider running your business today without using a smartphone, and you probably allow your colleagues and employees to use their mobile devices to stay connected with the workplace, a trend identified as “bring-your-own-device,” or BYOD.

But accessing your business and client information on your mobile device does raise serious security concerns. Alex Murguia, Managing Principal of McLean Asset Management Corporation, shared how his firm supports the BYOD trend while also enforcing the security of information stored on mobile devices. And coincidentally, the product he selected just got acquired by VMware this week for a reported amount of $1.5 billion dollars.] Our firm is instituting a Bring Your Own Device policy as part of our new Mobile Device Management strategy.

[And finally, if you’ve been considering an upgrade to your CRM or want to officially cut the cord from Microsoft Outlook (note: not a CRM), you’ve probably considered SalesForce, the 800-pound gorilla of CRMs, as a potential solution. Well one firm recently dove in head-first into a Salesforce implementation, but quickly found that things did not go as smoothly as they had planned.

An article published this week in RIABiz chronicles one RIA’s trials and tribulations with the CRM behemoth and reveals many important lessons learned along the way. So if you want to avoid the frustrations of a Salesforce deployment encountered by one RIA, I suggest you read this account and use it to influence your plans for a more successful CRM transition.] After a dazzling SF demo, Portland Global Advisors planned to dump its advisor-dumb Microsoft CRM for Salesforce but the devil was in details

From a video shown at Schwab IMPACT, the preview of PM2 featured a tile-like interface reminiscent of Windows 8. Project PM2 will offer proactive alerts for events like new account funding, trading reports, and revenue metrics.

PM2 will be a cloud-based solution offering direct integration to Schwab data feeds. Reports and presentations offer dynamic capabilities and will support one-step publishing to a variety of client delivery mechanisms.

PM2 to be Multi-Custodial

In a later interview with Brian Shenson, vice president of Advisor Technology solutions, he said the roadmap for PM2 includes multi-custodial data support as well as the potential integration of account aggregation software.

Shenson added that Schwab Advisor Services already has long-standing relationships with providers like ByAllAccounts and CashEdge from FiServ.

Details on pricing and availability for PM2 were not announced at IMPACT.

Schwab OpenView Mobile

Hathi also announced a current pilot program underway to provide affiliated advisors with a branded mobile app that clients can use to interface with their advisor.

Schwab OpenView Mobile is the official program, and Hathi explained that clients can use the branded app to view real-time account data and review their advisor’s contact information.

Schwab OpenView Mobile will be available for a nominal fee which was not disclosed during the Schwab IMPACT breakout session.

Reinvented Wire Requests; DocuSign Integration in Schwab Alliance

Naureen Hassan, SVP of Client Experience revealed that in an average quarter, Schwab manually verifies over 240,000 signatures across a variety of forms. Clearly Schwab recognizes the ability to increase operational efficiency here with the adoption of electronic signature support.

Hassan announced two pending initiatives. First, wire requests will be “completely reinvented,” as advisors can initiate wire requests via Schwab Advisor Center. Upon submission, clients will actually receive alerts on their mobile phone, and then they can log in to a Schwab app and approve the wire request on the spot.

Second, Hassan announced that DocuSign is currently in a pilot program and will soon be completely integrated in the Schwab Alliance system. Details on when DocuSign will be formally introduced for all Schwab advisors were not disclosed.

MoneyGuidePro Now Part of Integrated Office

Brian Shenson, VP of Advisor Technology Solutions was the next to take the stage and provide updates on the suite of Schwab OpenView solutions: Gateway, Integrated Office, Workflow Library, and MarketSquare.

Of most relevance is the addition of financial planning software integrations to Schwab OpenView Integrated Office™ platform. The first integration is with PIEtech to integrate MoneyGuide Pro financial planning software. NaviPlan from Zywave was also mentioned as an integration coming soon to Integrated Office.

MarketSquare Update

If you recall last year, Schwab announced the introduction of Schwab OpenView MarketSqaure, a review website consisting of advisor-submitted feedback on technology vendors and providers.

At this year’s IMPACT conference, Hathi said that over 70 providers have the potential to be listed in OpenView MarketSquare, but only 34 of them have a sufficient number of reviews to be publicly listed in the resource.

Hathi urged advisors in the audience to continue to submit their reviews of tools and services they use so MarketSquare can increase the number of providers present in the website.
34 have reviews.

All photos by Billy Cole/Orange Photography for Charles Schwab. Used with permission.

WealthCentral Mobile from Fidelity now allows advisers to snap photos of checks and deposit them into clients’ eligible Fidelity accounts

Weeks after LPL introduced remote check deposit in its app, Fidelity becomes the first custodian to offer the functionality to its advisers.

Fidelity Investments® introduced remote check deposit support for financial advisers with the latest update to the Fidelity WealthCentral Mobile app.

Fidelity WealthCentral Mobile has been available for iOS and Android devices for roughly two-and-a-half years, and its latest update introduces the remote check deposit feature widely popular among retail banks and financial institutions.

A First for RIAs

Snap photos of checks and deposit them using the Fidelity WealthCentral Mobile app

However, Fidelity does get recognition as being the first institutional custodian for independent RIAs to offer remote check deposit to its advisers.

Prior to the general release of remote check deposit to the adviser community, Fidelity worked with about a dozen firms in a pilot period, covering a wide range of business models and services.

“Natural Progression”

“We see this as a natural progression in the mobile space.” Ed O’Brien

“We see this [remote check deposit] as a natural progression in the mobile space,” said Ed O’Brien, head of technology for Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services, adding, “further enhancing our technology as we support the ‘anywhere advisor.'”

But advisers eager to download Fidelity WealthCentral Mobile and start depositing client checks right away with their mobile device will need to be patient.

Enrollment Required

Fidelity does have a qualification process for any adviser interested in becoming eligible to use remote check deposit. Advisers must first complete a remote deposit agreement and update their internal policies and procedures with appropriate steps for remote deposit.

The qualification process can take anywhere from one to six weeks, depending on the environment at the requesting firm. Remote deposit can be used by independent RIAs all the way up to institutional clients who clear under National Financial, which is the reason for such a wide range in implementation time.

“Each adviser is unique, so we want to first make sure we understand their needs and processes to ensure a successful deployment,” said O’Brien.

Deposit Limits

Deposits made through the mobile app are limited to $250,000 per check, and the same $250,000 limit applies to total daily deposits per account, which should cover a significant portion of checks received by advisers.

In general, there are no specific account restrictions for remote check deposit. Any account with deposit privileges, whether it’s brokerage, retirement, college savings, or trust, can accept deposits via mobile devices.

I spent all day Thursday traveling out and back to Minnesota, but I still managed to find time to write and produce this week’s episode of Bits and Bytes (click to watch on YouTube).

First, a word from this week’s sponsor. Without their support, Bits and Bytes wouldn’t be possible!

Today’s Bits and Bytes is brought to you by the 2013 T3 Enterprise Conference, exclusively designed for the technology needs of broker-dealers and financial enterprises. Mark your calendar for November 3rd through 5th in Chicago, and register today at www.t3enterpriseconference.com

[This week’s lead story is for all of you Android users out there. Now there’s one less reason to be jealous of your fellow iPhone owners. Late last week, Google announced that it will be introducing an app called Android Device Manager later this month for all users of Android version 2.2 and higher, which pretty much means 98% of all the Android devices on the market. Now iPhone and iPad users have been able to track, lock, and even remotely wipe the contents of their devices since 2010 using Apple’s Find My iPhone app, and Windows phone and Blackberry users have also had remote device management apps of their own for some time. Finally, this long-overdue app from Google will especially be useful for those of you using Android devices, because you can now have better remote administration of lost or stolen devices that may contain personal or client information.] Have you ever lost your phone in between the couch cushions or forgot it in a restaurant? Or maybe searching for your phone before you rush out the door is part of your morning routine? Later this month, the new Android Device Manager can help you out. It’s one of a few simple features you can use to keep your device—and the data you store inside—safe and secure.

[Speaking of mobile devices, huge numbers of financial advisers are using mobile devices to stay connected and get work done while on the road. But one of the areas with significant room for improvement is the use of mobile devices to check client portfolios, especially for clients with accounts at multiple custodians. All of the major custodians have mobile apps you can use to check on client accounts, but those only work for clients who hold all their assets with one institution. Fortunately, third party portfolio management software providers have their own apps advisors can use to review all of their clients’ holdings, regardless of where they are held. Two and a half years ago, Orion Advisor Services was one of the first to debut a mobile app for advisors, and just last month they updated their app with a cleaner, sleeker version advisers should find more user friendly. And another provider to watch is AssetBook, which launched its own app for advisors, also about a month ago. Details of what you’ll find in each mobile app are in this month’s column for Morningstar Advisor.] One of the first mobile portfolio management apps for advisors gets an update, while an under-the-“radar” provider debuts its own native app.

[Now for some news in the document management arena. It’s pretty to easy to scan paper documents or save PDF files to a document management system, but applying client signatures to those documents has always been a challenge. Often the easiest thing to do is to just print out a document, have a client sign it, and then rescan it back into the system. It gets the job done, but it’s not really efficient, and that means it costs you money. Fortunately, Laserfiche, the enterprise content management provider, announced this week that their solution now integrates with DocuSign, one of the leading electronic signature providers. And remember, custodians such as TD Ameritrade Institutional, Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services, and Pershing, as well as broker-dealers like Cambridge and LPL accept documents signed using DocuSign, with just a few exceptions. So this development is welcome news for all advisors seeking a true end-to-end paperless solution for processing client forms that require signatures.] Laserfiche today announced an integration with DocuSign, The Global Standard for eSignature®, to further enhance the value of the company’s industry-leading enterprise content management (ECM) solution with secure electronic signature.

[Wrapping up this week’s update is an article from Susan Weiner on six technology tools you can use to boost your writing output. Susan is the author of a brand new book titled Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients, and this week she shared her best technology tips on FPPad for all of you looking to build your online profile with effective blog posts.] Writing is a cerebral art, but sometimes technology helps. I’ve found six tools that can boost the quality and productivity of your writing. They play the roles of idea generator, disciplinarian, transcriptionist, enforcer, and mistake revealer.

And if you want to read the best material in financial planning knowledge and information over the weekend, click or tap the button below to head over to Michael Kitces’ Nerd’s Eye View blog and see the latest in Weekend Reading.

Technology available today allows you to decide when and where you want to work. Resources such as the cloud, integrated apps, and powerful mobile devices really do allow you to become the mobile adviser.

In this broadcast, I joined advisers Blair duQuesnay and Sunit Bhalla along with moderator Davis Janowski to cover all things mobile for financial advisers.

Just click the play button below to watch the live videocast of The Adviser’s Mobile World, hosted by InvestmentNews.